On Mon, 04 September 2000, smd@clock.org wrote:
The other alternative is to maintain a running P.R. war between the I* organization which is simply wrong, and those of us who have to explain to our investors why they are wrong. That takes work too.
I think its great some organizations allow/encourage its employees to participate in activites such as the IETF. However, there is a postive feedback loop. What is the return on investment of an operator sending folks to the IETF? Most major operators already get private presentations and submit individual requirements to the vendors to incorporate in their products. If UUNET needs some operational feature in a protocol, they call up their Cisco engineer and say jump. Presto, in the next release train, feature X shows up. Who needs rough consensus? I think the IETF is valuable, but what do you tell investors when they ask what's in it for them?